


Damaged but not broken

by davecabbage



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Major Character Injury, Thoughts of euthanasia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-01
Updated: 2014-04-01
Packaged: 2018-01-17 19:48:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1400299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/davecabbage/pseuds/davecabbage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck Hansen survives Operation Pitfall, but not without consequence. Herc struggles to cope when he can do nothing to help his son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged but not broken

**Author's Note:**

> I originally intended to write something cute and fluffy when I got the prompt of "Don't let them in" which I did write for another little drabble, but not before I also got the idea to go in the complete opposite direction. This was the result.

When they pulled Chuck out of the water Herc thought that someone had looked on his sad, pitiful life and decided ‘You know what? Maybe this guy has suffered enough already.’ In a world where there existed colossal monsters that decimated cities and an ever rising death toll, he should have known better. 

The doctors wouldn’t let him anywhere near Chuck at first. They performed surgery after surgery in their quest to stitch his son back together. When Chuck was finally left to rest, away from the needles and knives, they would have had to have shot Herc up with equal amounts of sedatives to keep him out of that room. They were all smart enough to stay out of his way.

When confronted with something truly horrific people often describe feeling of being at a loss for words. Being a man of few words in the first place, Herc not only felt speechless but as if someone had gripped him by the throat and choked away any words he might ever utter again.

The body that laid in the bed was smothered underneath an array of tubes and wires that protruded from so many different places. Nearly every inch was covered in bandages or casts and the skin that was visible was red or purple. The doctors had said that Chuck had rattled around in that pod like loose change in a washer; a washer that had been fitted with a jaeger engine. They said it was a miracle that he even survived, let alone be left with one or two unbroken bones. _Is this what a miracle looked like?_

Herc had thought he would be overwhelmed with relief when he saw his son alive, but the tears that came were not from joy. The man that collapsed at the foot of the hospital bed was not one who was celebrating the return of his son. The reports read that Chuck Hansen came back from the dead but Herc wasn’t sure if the thing in that bed was alive.

No one was granted access to Chuck’s room. Herc forbade it and the doctors agreed, claiming that his son needed rest and time to recover. He set up a temporary office consisting of a chair and a stack of ever mounting paperwork next to it. The nurses always worked swiftly, methodically and silently when changing bandages and fluids. The doctors always looked down at their charts when they updated him on Chuck’s progress.

There was no tearful reunion or heartfelt moment between father and son when Chuck opened his eyes. He had drifted in and out of consciousness at first and his eyes fluttered open for a few brief moments but never long enough to remain in the waking world. The first thing out of Chuck’s mouth when he fully woke was a scream. Herc wasn’t even sure he had heard anything at first. A barely audible croak emitted from the bed and when he looked up it rapidly evolved into wailing. 

Herc had scrambled to his feet and yelled for doctors, nurses, hell anyone who would stop his boy from hurting. He was shoved aside as a team of them swarmed around Chuck and communicated in medical jargon he failed to comprehend. He could make a towering machine walk around and beat the crap out of kaiju, but in that moment all he could do was stand there and wring his hands as he watched. His son continued to howl throughout.

Chuck was in a constant transition between drug induced sleep and waking agony. Some days he screamed until his throat was raw and when he couldn’t scream anymore his body shuddered as he sobbed. Others he would just lay there grimacing and writhing and whimpering. And Herc could do nothing but sit there and watch. He had tried to hold his son’s hand, let him know he was there for him, but Chuck only hissed in pain at the contact.

Angela was the one who had taken care of Chuck. She was the one who tucked him into bed and fed him when he was sick; the one who cleaned up the cuts and scrapes when he fell; the one who held him and kissed his head when he thought the pain would overwhelm him; and the one who whispered that he would be okay, it was only temporary, he would get better soon.

Herc just wanted to reach inside to pull the pain out of Chuck and beat it down into submission; to fight the monster tormenting his son. He was only ever good at smashing things up. Chuck gasped and grabbed a fistful of the sheets. The monster was waking up and rearing its head again. The gasps turned to sobs which turned to moans which turned to yells. And he begged. His son begged the monster to leave him alone. Herc let himself out when one of the nurses came in to adjust Chuck’s medication. He fell back against the wall and squeezed his eyes shut and tried to tune out the sound of his son’s pleas.

_What do I do, Angie?_

Herc was the one who had to choose between his wife and son. He lost his home. He lost his wife. He had to be the one who tell his son he didn’t have a mum anymore. He had to raise an angry little boy on his own. He lost his brother. He watched his son walk away from him and march to his death. Herc had heard his son’s final words as he accepted his fate like the dutiful soldier. Part of him hated Stacker for taking his son away, but not as much as he hated himself for not saying anything back. And he hated himself even more for not being down there with Chuck; for not dying with him. But he couldn’t stay mad at a dead man and he couldn’t change the past. He had continued the mission after his son had died. And he had stood among his cheering colleagues when the breach was closed and his son was gone.

And then Chuck came back to him and the world wasn’t ending anymore. This was supposed to be the easy part. This was supposed to be that Hollywood movie happy ending.

“Raleigh and Mako have been asking after you.” Herc said on one of Chuck’s ‘good days’ as the doctor put it. If you considered writhing, whimpering and the occasional sob to be a ‘good day’. These days, for Chuck, it really was.

“Don’t let them in.” Chuck whimpered. “Don’t let them in.”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, son.”

“Don’t let them see me like this.” Chuck continued to mutter incoherently. “Don’t let them in. Please don’t. Just stop. Stop. Please. Stop.”

Herc’s chest felt tight. _Just tell me how._

Chuck turned to him with wide eyes and Herc saw the tears flowing freely down his face and his lip trembling. “Dad.” His voice was barely above a whisper. “Make it stop, please.”

Herc had always had trouble finding the right words when talking with his son; truth was he had trouble finding any words when talking with Chuck. When you drift with someone, especially for as long as they had, you feel like there’s nothing to talk about. He wished he could drift with Chuck again and share the load. He just didn’t know what to say; didn’t know how to help.

He looked at the machinery hooked up to his son. He could pull a few plugs and take out a couple of tubes. He could increase the dose just a little; let him just drift away. Even the pillow under his head would do. He could do it. He could stop his boy from suffering. Let his son rest. No one could say he didn’t deserve it.

Herc got the hell out of there and didn’t go back for two days.

Chuck was asleep when Herc returned to the hospital room and reclaimed his spot in the worn out chair by his son’s bedside. Thinking on it, this was quite possibly the longest he and Chuck had spent together in a long time. The boy really had spent more time with Striker than with him. Herc did the best he could but the truth was he just didn’t know what he was doing. Chuck had shot down his every attempt to talk but it wasn’t as if he could blame the kid; he had to have learned it from somewhere. Angela was the communicator in their family. Chuck had spent much of his childhood with her while he was out working. He was there for his son, but he was never really _there._ The war didn’t change that. Hell, he’d even gave him Max as a stand in while he was out in Lucky Seven with Scott.

He remembered Angela’s words when leaned against the doorframe and watched her sit on the edge of their sick son’s bed, stroking Chuck’s hair and whispering to him. He remembered the little boy who hung onto every word and believed them because she was his mother, his protector.

“You’re going to be okay son.” Herc breathed.  “You’re going to get through this.”

Herc stopped trying to talk to his son and just talked to his son. About everything and anything. He talked about Max. He talked about Raleigh and Mako and everyone else in the dome. He talked about the paperwork and how Stacker was a lot better equipped to run things than he was. Herc wasn’t sure how much Chuck heard as he laid there in that bed but he kept talking anyway. He talked to him about Scott. He talked to him about Angela. For the first time in years he spoke her name to his son out loud.

He spoke until his throat was sore. How Chuck had screamed himself hoarse on an almost daily basis he couldn’t fathom. He told Chuck how sorry he was about everything. About not being there for him, about pushing him away and about not giving him that damn hug when he should have.

“I always figured I never had to say it out loud, what with the drift and all. But I should have. Some things just need to be said and heard.” Herc let out a long and deep breath. “I love you, son. So much.”

His voice cracked but he kept going. “And I won’t lose you again. I can’t.”

“I know.” Chuck murmured. “I always have.”

Chuck reached out his hand and Herc took it.

“I love you too, dad.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr here: http://davecabbage.tumblr.com/
> 
> Come say hi or yell at me for torturing those poor Australians.
> 
> I also welcome any Chaleigh prompts (I may take freaking ages but I do get to them all eventually)


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